This training makes your muscles grow and your strength go up — but not while you’re doing it. The best results show up weeks later, which means your body was under a lot of stress and needed time to recover.

Doing light weightlifting while restricting blood flow to the muscles can cause a big jump in special muscle repair cells, and this effect gets even bigger if you do it twice in a row.

Some people grow more muscle with regular heavy lifting, others grow just as much or more with heavy lifting plus blood flow restriction — there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Some people grow more muscle with regular heavy lifting, others grow just as much or more when they add blood flow restriction — there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

You can build muscle just as well by lifting light weights with your blood partially squeezed off, as you can by lifting heavy weights—so maybe it’s not the weight itself that matters most, but how much your muscles burn and swell up.

After six weeks of light weightlifting with blood flow restriction, older adults got stronger and could do more repetitions before getting tired.